13 Hours at Work

8.30am – Illustration class… more than half the class is late because of that mad traffic jam getting into campus. >_> (The jam is really absurd.)

10.00am – Advertising Design class. And today’s topic was especially lengthy. I’m amazed at how I managed to dredge up energy for 1.5 hours straight when I’m not a morning person and was already compelled to be up early.

11.30am – class ends, but some students have questions so I hang around to answer them…

11.45am – head back to office, but get sidetracked because I go to see L about something and we end up talking about various work stuff

12.20pm – finally get back to my cubicle, put laptop and files and bag on the table and try to relax for a bit… But then the delivery of T-shirts (for this Saturday’s event) arrives an hour earlier than expected. Very minor freak out as I suddenly have to scramble and get hold of J who is in a meeting with the student helpers for this event, so she can send some students to help cart the T-shirts up to our office.

1.00pm – T-shirt stuff settled, time for lunch.

2.00pm – Finish lunch and hurry along to another training session. Today’s training is supposedly “intermediate” level usage of the Moodle system. HAHAHAH I wouldn’t call it intermediate. It’s beginner level. I spaced out a lot and ended up replying student messages on Facebook and through e-mail in between. (There are SO many students with problems accessing the class Moodle page due to late sign-ups or change of course or whatever… It’s creating havoc for eveyone all round.) Also got kind of irritated with one of the other lecturers at the next table who was talking to the person beside him almost the entire session. Seriously… So rude. *frowns*

4.00pm – Done with training. 2 hours left to 6pm class. Alternated between daydreaming about a holiday and replying student messages and trying to sort out attendance list issues and preparing for the 6pm class. There are SO many problems with students registering late and all the add/drop-course mess and whatnot that two out of my three degree modules have unfixed attendance lists. The list in the database doesn’t match the list in the Moodle system and I’m totally confused. It’s already Week 3!

6.00pm – Last class of the day. I was already struggling to stay awake since 5pm. But… Must… Command… Strength. This is my largest class so far – 46 people. OR SO I THOUGHT. By the end of the class I had more like 50. It’s madness. If this keeps up, I really will have to put in a request to change classrooms. At any rate, with 40+ it’s really difficult to control the class. Group discussions are noisy as a market and I’m sooo worried the class next door will complain. Got angry with 3 girls after I was done with the lecture because they had been talking almost incessantly throughout the lecture. Usually, I don’t have to scold anyone this early in the term but I was too tired and I had no patience left for such behaviour. I told them off. They ended up just staring at their phones – not looking repentant at all. I did, however, tell the rest of the class that I greatly appreciated their cooperation and their participation. Kudos to them.

This last class went on for 3 hours. I’m not even sure how that happened. Must’ve been the discussion activity before and the Socrative quiz I did immediately after the lecture. (Side note: I threw in a completely unrelated question as a trial run for Socrative, and apparently most of the class thinks Spain is more likely to win the World Cup than Brazil, Germany, or England… And about a quarter just want “the team with the best-looking players” to win. LOL. I like asking random, silly questions of that sort.)

9.15pm – dragged myself to the car.

9.45pm – HOOOOME.

10.00pm – Ate McD for dinner. Watched some videos.

11.00pm – Still had work matters to attend to. Sent off messages to various students about various matters. Tried to sort out the chaos that is my attendance list for this big class. In the meantime, other students sent me messages on Facebook regarding some assignment submission (Illustration class has a submission this week). I’ve been kind of annoyed all day with multiple students who ask me for my e-mail when it was clearly shown to them in Week 1 and has been displayed in the class Moodle page since then. Grrrr. Message here, message there, class announcement here, another class announcement there…